Observing Television – A Blog on Broadcast Media

Popular Sony serial CID recently portrayed a TV journalist as a rude character. How correct is the portrayal?  Having been a TV Reporter for many years and having interacted with many, I got into a bit of analysis on this subject. 

Television Journalists  interact with the famous and powerful people.  Soon their audience starts recognising them.  Powerful people including the prime minister recognises many tv journalists by face & name.  They also get to travel with the PM and senior ministers on important state visits.  It is not surprising that a television journalists’ ego is boosted because of all of this. Having met and interacted with some of the well-known tv journalists, I should say many have taken this fame in their stride. They have not allowed the fame and importance they wield to go to their head.  But there are a few who consider themselves to be very powerful and believe it is their right to be arrogant.  Is this arrogance justified should they behave aggressive even off camera?  Well, many may say this is upto the indivdual. This is akin to the hollywood film ‘The Mask’.  In this film when Jim Carrey, the lead actor wears the mask he becomes a comical hero but when the villain wears the same mask he uses the power to become evil. The same may apply to journalists, if a humble gentle person were to become a journalist he will stay humble, while an arrogant person will possibly become rude as he feels powerful.  Sometimes of course the reverse is also possible,  exposure to reality could turn even an aggressive and rude person into a very soft and good human being.

I have had the opportunity to interact with well-known Indian television personalities including Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai, Mr. Karan Thapar, Mr. Rahul Kanwal, Mr. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta… I also had the opporunity to work with some of them.  The aggressive tough interviewers on camera came across as good human beings.  The aggression was absent in their interactions with colleagues or normal people.  

Of course I have also met few TV journalists who believe they have achieved the ultimate success in their lives.  They look at others as inferior human beings.  It is more about the your demeanour than the job.

I was pleasantly surprised by the participants of a workshop I conducted in Myanmar for their only public-private partnership channel MRTV-4.  The worshop brought a huge change in the outlook of the 60 strong young professionals.  The workshop conducted on behalf of Asia Pacific Institute of Broadcast Development (AIBD) was aimed at exposing the participants to latest programming styles in Television.

Not being exposed to different formats of programming the channel and its team was lagging behind by many years.  One week of intensive exposure however not only changed their outlook but also surprised even the bosses on what their own people can produce. This was not the first time I was conducting a workshop such as that, but the results for the one conducted for the MRTV-4 group were amazing.

The reason for this sudden metamorphosis was the willingness to learn amongst the participants.  The change was all the more praisworthy as there were many obstacles for the participants.  To beginwith they did not understand English and I had to use a translator to give the lessons.  Further since they were not exposed to the latest programming styles even smaller aspects had to be highlighted.  Every session of the workshop was an aha! experience for the participants.  Further, the availability of equipment and technology for the group was limited.  But the participants were so keen to learn that they were easily able to overcome these limitations. They were always waiting to get more from the next session.  For a trainer there can never be a better atmosphere for teaching. My own motivation was so high that I tried to add something in every session.

The end result was amazing, just within that one week the students ended up producing programmes that were technically very good, and content wise refreshingly different. Some of them were good enough to compete with better television channels of the world. 

The example goes on to highlight that a good attitude to learn will definitely get best out of any workshop or training.  And the wrong attitude can ruin the best of the workshops.

Shock your viewer! Keep him worried! Depress the housewife who sees the turmoil ridden soap. These seem to be the general guidelines to get TRP. Negative news sells, but what about positive stories, what about stories that give hope and happiness.

Of late I have started hearing remarks which could be worrisome to some of the news channels. Well-read and generally well-aware friends of mine say they’ve stopped looking at television news for information. They say channels just harp on one negative news forever. For instance they say they have already heard too much about CWG- the deadlines being missed and the corruption involved. They say move on give us news that touches us directly. So does that mean the immediate success in getting TRPs using sensational negative news is not going to help channels in the long run? So should channels change their stance? Would these rules also apply to soaps?

At my own home, family members are hooked to Tamil serials shown on a well-known south Indian channel. One of the producers there is mainly dependent on showing sufferings of the protagonist (a woman) for TRP. The producer has been very successful with this initiative. But what will happen if the same protagonist was shown achieving things, shown having a happy life, shown being positive all the time. Will it work? Will the TRPs go up or down? Obviously, there is a need to have a villain in the story, but in the serials there are one too many. There are the situations that go against the protagonist, there is of course a main villain and then there are those who support the villain. All in all every minute is dangerous for the central character in that half an hour. Look at how this affects the psyche of the viewer, subconsciously we are told we live in dangerous times and no one can be believed.

In contrast, let us look at what happens when positive subjects are shown. When India wins a cricket match or when Saina Nehwal wins a badminton tournament or India launches the moon craft or a cut in income tax we are happy and want to hear more about it. The TRP is bound to go up, but why is it that we don’t keep harping on these subjects. One cannot obviously shy away from all the negative things that happen around us. We definitely need to show them to the viewer so that he can be aware. But probably somewhere we have got into the habit of over kill of the same. It is not possible to balance every negative news with positive one; my only belief is if we harp equally on positive news in the long there will be positive results on the TRP front. The results may not be immediate but in the long run more viewers will be attracted towards the channels with positive outlook.